Those professionals involved in teaching beginning golfers how to swing a golf club or retained to improve the skills of seasoned golfers have discovered that the creation of "muscle memory" in a student golfer is an effective way of teaching a golf swing for maximum ball travel distance and directional accuracy. Specifically, if a student golfer repeats the desired swing of a golf club multiple times, the student golfer will be able to replicate the feel of the desired golf swing by the use of "muscle memory." That is, if a golfer knows what a desired golf swing feels like, the student golfer will be able to replicate the feeling of that desired swing during actual play and achieve maximum ball travel distance and directional accuracy.
In many training situations, the golf teaching professional first observes and then makes verbal comments on the student golfer's swing of a golf club. After the training session, the student golfer is left on his/her own to practice the swing described by the teaching professional. If the student golfer properly practices the swing described by the golf teaching professional, the student golfer's "muscle memory" will cause the desired golf swing to be replicated on the golf course during actual play. However, if the desired golf swing is practiced improperly, the student golfer's "muscle memory" will retain a golf swing still in need of correction or modification.
Some teaching golf professionals also assist student golfers by first demonstrating problems with the student golfer's swing and then showing the student golfer how to make the needed corrections. Some golf teaching professionals actually swing a golf club together with the student golfer. Unfortunately, this teaching method has proven to be ineffective in providing repeatable results and imperfect in teaching an effective swing. Swinging a golf club together with a student golfer is teaching a method designed to begin the process of imparting the feel of a proper swing into the student golfer's "muscle memory." However, following such swing demonstrations the student golfer is then left on his/her own to practice the desired swing. Unfortunately, if the student golfer is unable to frequently practice the swing demonstrated by the teaching golf professional, "muscle memory" will fade and eventually become lost.
One of the most difficult instructional situations for a golf teaching professional occurs when teaching the beginning student golfer how to swing a golf club as there is no foundation upon which to build muscle memory for a proper golf swing. In this situation, the golf teaching professional's goal is to cause the student golfer to develop a repeatable single swing pattern. Hopefully, this repeatable single swing pattern will cause the head of the golf club to strike the golf ball consistently. A second difficult instructional situation occurs when the golf teaching professional is called upon to correct or improve the swing of an experienced golfer. Typically, such experienced golfers have a well developed swing that may be defective or ineffective. In yet another instructional situation, the golf teaching professional is called upon to assist a golfer in changing the geometry of a golf swing and the orientation of the golf club during the swing due to a change in body size, body flexibility or muscle tone. In such cases, the need arises to select a new swing geometry from one of several possibilities to determine which golf swing geometry feels best to the experienced golfer and consistently produces the best results in ball travel distance and directional accuracy.
In still other instructional situations, some golfers find the need to develop multiple swing patterns which can be used with different clubs or in different playing situations. To determine which golf swing pattern best suits the golfer's playing style and body physiology, there is a need to be able to demonstrate to the golfer a variety of different swing patterns. The golfer can then select the golf swing pattern or geometry to be practiced.
Effectively meeting the foregoing instructional needs requires implementation of a system which can repeatedly and consistently demonstrate to the student golfer the best way to swing a golf club. In recent years there have been attempts to meet this need by the creation of various machines which were designed to repetitively force the student golfer to swing a golf club through a certain range of motion. Such prior art machines provide the student golfer the opportunity to build "muscle memory," but not for all motions of the swing and in many cases not entirely correct motions for a real human golf swing. Additionally, there is also a need to provide the student golfer with both "real time" and delayed feedback on where and how much the student golfer's swing path and club orientations deviate from the desired swing path and club orientations.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,876,212 describes an apparatus which a beginning golfer may use to learn how to swing a golf club. The device described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,876,212 enables a golfer to practice the basic movement of a golf swing by providing a computer controlled mechanism for controlling the movement of a golf club throughout its swing path. However, U.S. Pat. No. 3,876,212 falls short of providing control along all of the six degrees of freedom associated with the positioning and orientation of a golf club through the swing. Specifically, no provision was made in U.S. Pat. No. 3,876,212 for computer control of the rotation of the golf club about the long axis of the golf club shaft as occurs in an actual golf swing. This deficiency may make it difficult for a beginner golfer to learn the orientation of the golf club during the portion of a golf swing which is often called the "release." For many golfers, learning the "release" portion of the golf swing is the most difficult part of learning how to swing a golf club. Further, the device described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,876,212 does not provide for arbitrary positioning of the golf club and calculation of a desired swing path and club orientation based on an arbitrary positioning of the golf club.
Other prior art patents describing machines for assisting a golfer in learning how to swing a golf club, include:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,439,225 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 5,242,344 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,326,718 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,280,701
Like U.S. Pat. No. 3,876,212, each of the foregoing four U.S. patents all use a predetermined single swing path with some adjustability. But, as previously indicated, a predetermined single swing path may not be suitable for all golfers. In addition, the mass and friction forces associated with prior art golf swing teaching machines may be so great as to provide an artificial feel to the swing as the golfer experiences the forces required to move the machine and overcome friction while guiding the golf club through a swing path.
Accordingly, a need remains in the art for a golf swing training and correction system to completely replicate the position and orientation of a golf club through all portions of a golf swing; a system that can be used to create a golf swing path and club orientation irrespective of the size or stature of the student golfer based on an arbitrary position of the golf club; and a system that minimizes the inertial and friction forces associated with the machinery used to hold the golf club and guide it through a predetermined golf swing path or geometry.